Inspector Gadget 2 : Movie Review

Edited with the cuisinart clarity of a car commercial, designed with a balloon-animal colour palette similar to that of last year's psychedelic Thomas in Love, Inspector Gadget 2 (henceforth IG2--incidentally, the on-screen logo makes Inspector 2 Gadget) has style in theory, like Avril Lavigne, but is flat and exasperating--also like Avril Lavigne. I haven't seen the original film, but I did watch the cartoon every morning before school as a kid (we used to sing our own version of the theme song in the playground: "Doo doo doo doo do, Inspector Goo-head"--ah, those pre-cognitive days), so I recognize certain touchstones the sequel, um, touches: faceless supervillain with the pussycat emblem Dr. Claw (who, robbed of his synthetic speech in addition to his lap kitty, looks and acts like Truman Capote in IG2); Inspector Gadget's niece Penny (Caitlin Wachs) and her dog Brain (in IG2, a beagle without the flexibility of his animated counterpart), both fledgling detectives; and the always-fuming Chief Quimby (Mark Mitchell), who does not pop out of mailboxes and such things here to deliver messages to Gadget that self-destruct. More disappointingly, he is clean-shaven.